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From: laura@utzoo.UUCP (Laura Creighton)
Newsgroups: net.politics.theory
Subject: Re: Taxation is theft?
Message-ID: <5045@utzoo.UUCP>
Date: Sat, 9-Feb-85 07:55:42 EST
Article-I.D.: utzoo.5045
Posted: Sat Feb  9 07:55:42 1985
Date-Received: Sat, 9-Feb-85 07:55:42 EST
References: <326@gargoyle.UChicago.UUCP> , <1370@dciem.UUCP>
Organization: U of Toronto Zoology
Lines: 17

About the ``everybody being better off'' proposition:

I have yet to hear *anybody* say that ``the rich'' would be better
off if you took money away from them. I have heard it said that
``they have so much that it doesn't matter to them whether you take
it away from them'' and that ``it only hurts them a little, and there
are few of them, and so many people who would benefit so that *overall*
we are all better off'', but the logic of the second proposition rests on
concluding that ``the greatest good for the greatest number'' is an
ethical way to decide ones actions. And, following that, it does follow
that one thinks that ``the poor'' deserve more money -- they deserve it
because it would be ``the greatest good for the greatest number'' which
is how one who strictly followed this formula of utilitarianism would
determine who deserved what.

Laura VCreighton
utzoo!laura